“Thank you.” Yiloch acknowledge the message and dismissed him with a quick nod of appreciation then hurried on, breaking into a jog in empty halls where no one was around to be worried by his urgency.
The door attendant at the main entrance hall spotted him the moment he stepped out of an adjacent hallway and opened one massive door, allowing him to pass outside without a break in stride as though he had been expected, which he probably had been if the messenger had done his job well. The serving staff within the palace always worked together well that way, each one alerting the others to the things that might affect them for maximum efficiency. Many of them were from families that had worked within those halls for generations. They were yet one more reason he wasn’t going to let this army destroy his home.
The waiting night was black and tense with a sense of anticipation. Torches lit around the vast courtyard by the barracks, stables, and other buildings, offered a moody, flickering illumination for the constant movement of soldiers. The activity level told him that many of his officers were already aware of the change in the enemy army and were well into the process of getting mobilized for confrontation. In the midst of the bustle, a young man came trotting toward him, drawing Tantrum along behind him in full battle gear. Irritated by the relentless tugging, the stallion jerked back his head, yanking the youth back several staggering steps. The youth’s gaze turned inward and he shook his head, perhaps reprimanding himself for allowing his own impatience to interfere with his ability to perform his duties. He placed a hand on the stallion’s neck to calm him.
Yiloch covered the last bit of distance to spare the young man any further conflict with the particular stallion. The youth held out the reins, bowing as he did so, and stepped out of Yiloch’s path.
“Your majesty. Lord Captain Adran sent word that your horse should be made ready for you.”
He took the reins, appreciating Adran’s forethought. For a few seconds, he considered asking the youth how long he had been waiting with the stallion in order to see how far behind his captain he was, but the boy looked tense enough to burst in his own skin already. It would be cruel to further rattle his nerves with unexpected and ultimately irrelevant questions, especially when Yiloch really didn’t have time to worry about such things.
“Thank you,” he acknowledged, letting the youth take care of punishing himself for yanking on the sensitive horse. “You may go.”
The youth’s face flushed bright in the flickering torchlight and he bowed deeper before turning to hurry back to the stables, his abrupt departure drawing a snort from Tantrum. Yiloch swung up on the dappled grey stallion and turned him toward the inner gates, stroking his neck to sooth him. Mounted, he had a better vantage and could move around the considerable inner courtyard and the city itself much faster. The inner gates stood open for now, allowing for the quick movement of troops into and out of the city.
He urged Tantrum up to a ground-eating trot, passing fast through the gates. Unless things went horribly wrong, the battle would stay outside the outer city wall.
As he moved out into the city, he spotted a number of adepts, marked by the symbol of an eye with a star pupil embroidered in silver on the shoulders of their grey and blue uniforms, moving about amidst the soldiers and the few civilians not holed up in their houses. Most of them looked bone-weary and tense. The ones who looked the worst were those with the strongest connections, he suspected, the ones most sensitive to the Grey Army’s intimidation tactics.
I hope you are all stronger than you appear.
Most of them had seen some level of conflict when he took the empire from his father if not before then, but the Grey warlord had introduced a few new challenges already. It would be foolish not to expect more.
Yiloch experienced a puzzling blend of excitement and dread as he considered the prospect of facing off against this new and challenging foe. It was thrilling to have a worthy opponent. His father hadn’t been, not really. His destructive behaviors had made it easy to gain allies within the imperial army and therefore easy to turn the tides once he was dead. With Indigo there and the timely arrival of others, even Myac hadn’t proven that hard to overcome, though he was still out there somewhere wreaking havoc on their lives. The many recent trials with Ferin’s loss and his estrangement of Indigo made him hungry to lose himself in fighting this enemy, despite the risks. He would have to be careful not to make any mistakes as a result. Arrogance had a sharper edge than any blade.
A blue light flared on the outer wall to the right of the main gate, drawing the figures of Adran and Ian out of the darkness. Yiloch turned Tantrum toward the nearest stairs and pulled the stallion up at the bottom, leaping off before he had fully stopped. He took the stairs two at a time and hurried over to join the two men. Hax was there as well, eyes narrowed as she leaned on the wall, peering out into the darkness. Yiloch scanned the lands beyond the wall. Movement was discernable in the dark, but only if he focused hard.
“Ian, can you create a light out there, just for a moment. I want to see what we’re facing.”
Ian nodded. A pinprick of light appeared in the sky halfway between the outer wall and the line of trees that followed the river. Then the light burst outward, illuminating the entire expanse for several heartbeats. A mass of mounted warriors filled the open fields. They were statue still, aside from the few horses that spooked at the flash. In the brief light, he saw that they carried no shields. There was nothing obvious to protect them from arrows launched from the wall. It was a disconcerting statement of confidence in their barriers. The scene exuded an ominous calm. The warriors waited like patient cats, ready to pounce the instant their prey let down its guard.
I will not let down mine, Yiloch thought with a satisfying burn of defiance.
“Have you had any luck breaking through their protections?”
Ian glanced along the wall. A group of adepts was gathered there. One twitched and turned to face Ian, responding to some silent summons from the creator. She gave a slight shake of her head, her distressed look conferring all the information Yiloch needed. He emitted a soft growl of frustration as he glared out into the darkness. Ian, recognizing that Yiloch already had his answer, wisely held his silence.
There was no order issued, no battle cry from the fields, but suddenly the wall shuddered beneath them as if struck with a massive wave. A few cries of alarm rang out along its length and an almost feral snarl came from Hax.
“Fire your lead archers when the light appears,” Yiloch commanded, glancing from Hax to Ian.
Hax gave the order the moment Ian illuminated the opposing army and a volley of arrows whistled through the night. The arrows stopped several feet short of the lead riders and clattered to the ground, useless. The light vanished again.
Yiloch cursed, pounding one fist against the cold stone of the battlement. The wall shuddered again as another wave of power struck it. At least he understood now why the army carried no torches. They didn’t need light for an attack like this and the darkness concealed them from the Lyran army. The lack of sight would put the defenders on edge, but he wasn’t willing to waste his ascard resources on illumination. He had a feeling they would need every resource they had in the days ahead.
“Ian, if your adepts haven’t figured a way to break their barriers yet, then we need turn our attention to finding some way to block their attacks or this wall will come down.” Ian nodded and turned, jogging over to the adepts. Yiloch turned to Hax. “Get some units working to move people back behind the inner walls. Be discrete, we can’t fit the whole city.”
“Yes, my lord,” Hax replied, her lip curling as though his orders had come with a bitter taste. She headed down the stairs then, calling out orders with every step and soldiers jumped to carry them out.
The hint of predawn light was beginning to spread across the scene. Yiloch ground his teeth as he looked out over the attacking force. There were thousands of them. Like a vast colony of fire ants, they would swarm in when the wall fe
ll and begin a similar attack on the inner wall.
Another violent tremor shook the wall then. It would go down if the adepts didn’t figure something out fast. The cracking and grinding of stone rang out around the front portion. Time stretched while he waited to feel the wall tremble again and the city behind him was silent, as if its residents waited with him, holding their breath in fear and anticipation.
Ian trotted back over to him.
“We’ve managed to block an attack by combining the power over the group into a shield of sorts, but it’s going to take a heavy toll on energy to keep it up,” he reported.
Yiloch nodded. “They shouldn’t be able to sustain these attacks without draining their adepts as well.”
Ian’s apologetic grimace wasn’t comforting. “Because they’re used to working this way, they won’t be burning through as much power as we will because of our inexperience. They have a lot of adepts out there who are clearly trained in this kind of unified defense and assault.”
“Set a group to blocking the attacks for as long as they can. I don’t want you to be one of them. I may need you for other things later. When the first group starts fading, we’ll decide whether to start a new group on that task or retreat. In the meantime, if you have any ideas for bringing down those barriers, they would be very welcome.”
Ian nodded, his silence on the matter expanding the hollow dread in Yiloch’s chest, and returned to the team of adepts.
Yiloch shoved despair to one side and faced his advisor. “Adran, tell Hax we need our soldiers ready to retreat on a second’s notice. I have a powerful feeling things aren’t going to go the way we would like them to.”
Adran nodded. He looked tired, but Yiloch envied him his inability to feel the power that was going into the Grey Army’s attacks now. The earlier intimidations had been unnerving, but these waves of power were stunning in their force and seamless perfection. If only they could break down those protections. Even then, the battle would be a hard one. Every mounted warrior for as far as he could see was armed and he suspected all of them, adept and soldier alike, were skilled with their weapons. At least physical combat would be an improvement over the growing feeling of helplessness.
He pounded the wall again, snarling in frustration.
•
The sun had been up for a few hours when Theron joined them on the wall. The first group of defending adepts was fading. They sat against the inside edge of the wall now, more than one of them with their eyes closed as they focused all of their attention on blocking the attacks. Each one looked exhausted, their faces ashen, their lips pressed tight together. Several of them winced on occasion and, given the timing of the reactions, he suspected they were responding to attacks against the wall, each one a little harder to stop than the last.
Beyond the wall, the Grey Army remained patient and unmoved by their feeble resistance. They knew as well as he did that this was only a delaying tactic.
Before acknowledging the emissary, Yiloch turned to Ian.
“How long has it been?” he asked with a deliberate glance toward the group of adepts.
“Less than four hours,” Ian answered.
“How many groups do we have to throw at this?”
“Based on skill set and strength of connection needed, I can probably come up with about five more effective groups.”
Yiloch leaned on the parapet, scowling out at the invaders. “That only gives us about seventeen hours of defense assuming every group holds out for about the same amount of time. Maybe a bit more if their adepts start to weaken. How much time will the first group need to recover?”
Ian chewed at his lower lip for a moment and Yiloch took advantage of the pause to nod to Lord Theron so the man would know he had been noticed. Theron offered a slight nod in return, his attention on Ian.
“We could swap out the last group with the first and rotate them through that way, but after this much exertion the groups may not be as strong the second time around.”
Yiloch shook his head, his lip lifting in a silent snarl as the wall trembled. “Get another group ready to take over and come back. We need to discuss our options.”
Ian nodded and hurried back to the group of adepts.
Yiloch met Adran’s worried gaze. “Adran, get word around to Commander Hax that we should move at least two-thirds of the army behind the inner wall now.” The wall trembled again. This time, he did his best to ignore it. “The rest should be ready to retreat…” He trailed off when he saw Leryc coming up the near stairs, taking them two at a time as he himself had earlier.
The young captain strode up to them, giving Theron a curious glance then catching Adran’s eyes in a gaze rife with longing and fear before bowing to Yiloch. “My lord, Cadmar sent a messenger in via the port. There are reinforcements in the valley just to the north. About 2000 strong. They await word from you before making a move.”
Cadmar was no fool. An outright attack while the barriers were up would have resulted in the slaughter of those 2000 soldiers. In sheer numbers, the Lyran force was greater than the Grey Army now, but unless they figured out how to destroy those barriers, it gave them no real advantage.
“Send word that they should remain hidden. I’ll have an adept send out a blue signal over the palace if we get the opportunity to attack. If an orange signal goes up, they should retreat to safety.”
Leryc lowered his gaze and drew a deep breath. After a few seconds, he released it and nodded. “Yes, my lord. I will see that the message is sent.”
Ian joined them again as Leryc departed and Adran went in search of Hax. He nodded once to indicate that the next group was busy blocking attacks. The bleakness of his expression wasn’t encouraging.
Turning away from that discouraging look, Yiloch’s gaze lit upon Theron who was staring out at the Grey Army with a look of intense concentration.
“There must be some way to fight them.”
“If you have any ideas, I’m open to hearing them. Our adepts simply aren’t strong enough or practiced enough at working together to bring down those barriers or continue fighting this assault for long,” Yiloch admitted with a tight edge of anger in his voice. “If you’re going to leave, now would be a good time. I suspect we will be evacuating some others before the day is out.”
Theron shook his head. “If this army was up against Caithin, I’m afraid we would have even less chance of fighting back. I have an interest in seeing them defeated here. I think I’ll stick around for a while. Learn what I can and hope for a breakthrough.”
Yiloch nodded and gazed out over the untouched enemy army.
Less than three hours later, the next group of adepts broke down.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The last few days of travel were miserable for Indigo. All the Kudaness warriors kept their distance from her, giving her dark looks for the way she had dared to use ascard in front of them. For that, she would not apologize. The man had died far more peacefully by her method than he would have by theirs, though she continued to fight the ache in her chest at having forced his end when his body refused to let go on its own. What gave her that right? What gave any of them that right?
Suac Chozai still held on to his anger over the sucar incident. Adding this new infraction to the mix only served to increase the tension between them. His anger wasn’t as easy to ignore given that she did still feel a nagging remorse over taking the sucar without asking. In the end, though, she didn’t care if they all ostracized her, so long as they continued to march north toward Lyra.
They were getting close. Less than a day at the current pace and they would be at the gates of Yiroth, or at least as close as they could get with the Grey Army in their path. It was almost eerie how well she remembered this area from when she passed through with Yiloch’s army not such a long time ago. A lot had changed in such a short time. She no longer felt like the same person. Her ability with ascard had grown considerably, though it still failed to gain her what she wanted most. Mostly i
t had helped her become a murderer and an outcast. Even here, where the Kudaness had accepted her as a priest, that power was making her unwelcome.
Still, she did appreciate many of the advantages it offered.
She spread her ability throughout the army of dark-skinned, tattooed warriors. When she touched Suac Chozai, she narrowed it to a guiding thread of ascard and began to weave her horse through the bristling warriors, their spears making a field of spikes from her vantage. At the end of the thread, she found the Murak suac walking with the other suacs. She bowed her head in a show of respect as they glanced up at her and, although there were numerous frowns of disapproval, they opened a path for Chozai to move over beside her.
“Suac Chozai, may we speak?” she asked in Kudaness, pausing only a little as she struggled with the right words.
The suac gave her a dark look, but he nodded. “We speak already. What do you wish to say?”
“We are close to Yiroth now.” Despite the uneasy jitter of her nerves, she pressed on, reverting back to the Lyran trade dialect for expediency. “Perhaps it would be wise to ask the gods what lies ahead.”
“You wish to use the sucar again?”
The tension in his tone discouraged her. Still, she wasn’t about to let him cow her now, not when she had gained so much ground through being stubborn.
“It makes no sense to charge in blind when we have the means to look ahead at what waits for us.” Chozai said nothing, but she could feel a tangled web of emotions warring within him. “Do you disagree?”
He shook his head. “Your words ring true, but the last time you searched, you did not find what you were seeking.”
“Then perhaps you should be the one to walk. It isn’t necessary for me to go.”
His brows went up and he turned a shrewd gaze on her. “That you are willing to let me go alone speaks well of what you have learned, but this is still your spirit journey. When we stop again, I will come and guide you.”
Apostate: Forbidden Things Page 14